The present invention disclosed herein relates to an apparatus and method for controlling a driving device of a self-driving vehicle.
Typically, an autonomous unmanned vehicle, namely, a self-driving vehicle means a vehicle that has a function of autonomously recognizing a driving environment without driver's manipulation and driving to a target point. An unmanned autonomous vehicle includes a detection system (e.g., a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) module, or a GPS module, etc.) capable of autonomously grasping a location and recognizing obstacles, a central control device issuing commands such as acceleration/deceleration, and steering according to detection results of the detecting system, and a driving device performing necessary operations according to the commands like an actuator. The autonomous vehicle requires a system supporting a driving algorithm platform compatible with sensors and driving devices provided accordingly. Various sensors (e.g. a wide dynamic range (WDR) sensor and a LIDAR sensor) and driving devices that have different hardware and software protocols may be provided, and depending on the types of sensors and driving devices, or even depending on different manufacturer or name of the model of the same type of sensors and driving devices, a system that supports different platform is necessary in an unmanned vehicle. There was an issue of low compatibility since a platform designed according to formats of specific sensor and driving device cannot be applied to a vehicle that mounted different sensor due to diversified data formats according to types, manufacturers or model names of the sensors, and different signal formats for various driving devices that have various driving control accordingly. In addition, since a platform becomes designable only after types, manufacturers, and model names of all the sensors and driving devices to be applied to the autonomous vehicle are determined, design implementation and verification on driving algorithm platform that is essential in the autonomous vehicle is delayed. Furthermore, since different platforms should be designed according to specifications of sensors and driving devices to be applied to the autonomous vehicle, significant difficulty occurs in implementing the platforms. Replacing the sensors and driving devices with those of different manufacturers or model names requires increasing replacement time and a cost because a driving control algorithm is required to be changed.